Unlocking Success: A Journey from Loan Officer to Real Estate Executive

Speaker 2 (00:04.686)
Welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host, Stephen Schmidt. And I’m back at it like a bad habit. We’re here in the thing and I’ve got an incredible guest here. He’s got 32 years in the real estate space and we’re to be having a great conversation about how his time in real estate has evolved. He is a very prestigious, high level executive who’s led national brands and establishing operations in various states.

16 years in education, actually teaching real estate law at community colleges. And he’s a coach with over 12,000 paid calls under his belt. And he’s about to retire here at 50 years old, which means he’s probably just moving on to his next thing because he’s figured out how to make his money work for him, which is what we all get into this business for in the first place. just remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to file for businesses so they can build the businesses they’ve always wanted.

so they can live the lives they’ve always dreamed of just like my man, Jason Bosch in the house. Thanks so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Absolutely, Stephen. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Man, we were having such a great pre-show conversation. I had to stop you and say, man, we probably better hit a quarter or else you’re gonna have to repeat yourself a ton. Can you just to catch everybody up to speed, cause I kind of know a little bit about your story here now, but for everybody listening, can you tell us what got you started in the space and how did you get to where you’re at today now being, know, 50 next week and about to soft retire?

Speaker 1 (01:37.622)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ve been in the real estate space overall 30 plus years, right? I got in right out of high school. High school girlfriend, which later was the wife and mother of my kids. Her parents were in real estate and they kind of encouraged me to get into it. And at the time I started as a loan officer providing first time buyer loans for largely Hispanic community that were purchasing hut owned properties. VA, there was a lot of

foreclosures and REOs at the time, early 90s, 92, 93, 94, 95. And that’s what got me into the business. That’s how I started. I had a couple of great folks that kind of mentored me along early on, got into sales. that’s how the train got going, if you will.

That’s awesome. So now how have things evolved over the last 30 years from where you started and then how’d you get into the position of being an executive with these major brands, KWA, XP, if I can mention those. How did your roles evolve over the years to get into where you’re at now?

Yeah, going through, when I put myself through college, right, I was not one of those that went to college right out of high school. I went to college, you know, afterwards, piece mailing it, if you will. I realized that I did not want to be a professional sales person exclusively my whole life. I felt that there was more that I could provide to the industry, if you will, and leadership really attracted me.

And so once I got out of college, I looked to get involved in leadership and management. And I was hired as an assistant manager for a small Coldwell banker office in Riverside, California. And that was kind of the first transition, right? Going where my day job, my day-to-day income, you will, relied solely on my sales as both a loan officer and then I transitioned into selling homes.

Speaker 1 (03:42.526)
into helping others and kind of supervising the office. And in many ways it was starting over, right? Because you don’t realize it at the time that running a real estate office with salespeople, you’re like the head salesman, right? I thought I was getting out of sales where in fact I was getting deeper into sales because you gotta be recruiting, you gotta be selling people on why they should keep going, teaching and training. And so it was both educational but also

satisfying. I did that for a number of years and that’s what ultimately led into me being a franchise Z for Keller Williams. And that was in gosh 2010, right? And Keller Williams at the time was kind of the leader in national training and development and coaching. And I was with them for a number of years, over a decade. I was a coach and trainer and regional director and a whole bunch of things under the Keller Williams

brand. And that led me into the coaching, right? It’s almost been a step by step for me. I started in sales, as a loan officer, salesperson, then into running an office and eventually into coaching. The common theme throughout it was that I realized early on, Steven, that the day job, whatever it was, was not going to be what took me over the top.

Right? The day job would supply my income for my lifestyle and running the household, taking vacations, all the things you need to do. And I had a good income all of those years. But I also realized that the guys that were going and doing all of the other things were accomplishing that not from their day job, but from their investments.

And so that’s really what led me to where I am now is finding and exploring different ways to invest. For me, it was mostly real estate related because I’m one of these guys, right? I put my blinders on and I focus on what I know. And for the most part, it’s been real estate. But over the last couple of years, I’ve gone outside of real estate. And I think there’s a story to be told there because ultimately,

Speaker 1 (06:04.812)
Being open to investing outside of real estate is what finally really took me over the top and has allowed me to be in a position now where I can soft retire, if you will. I feel still too young to even say that, but it gives me some more opportunities to do other things and not have to rely on that day job, if you

100 % When you start looking outside real estate, was there maybe a moment or experience that you had where you realized, you know what, maybe I should be trying different avenues with my money to see if there’s better returns? how did you come to that point?

Yeah, I realized that a lot of the authors and podcasts, hosts and individuals that I was following all owned investments, property, businesses, not exclusive to real estate. Right. And I didn’t I didn’t notice that early on. It took me a good couple rounds, if you will.

to realize that, to realize that I was as savvy as I thought I was with investing in single family residences as rentals, as long-term rentals. I was very naive in taking the same amount of money and putting it into something else, a business, right?

I started exploring with potentially opening an insurance company that was ancillary to the Keller Williams offices I already owned. that’s what I, that’s where I really started thinking, wow, that business does pretty good. That business does pretty good. And, and yeah, again, when you’re curious, right, and you start probing around doors, start opening an opportunity, start showing themselves to you that, you know, probably wouldn’t have or don’t.

Speaker 1 (08:06.146)
when you’re not looking. And so that’s how that started for me.

Yeah. Do any of those businesses have some form of relation to one another in terms of the circulation of your money?

I’m currently no currently and and and I’ll just say it because it’s no secret right I own a couple of dry cleaners in Southern California and I other than the fact that we have clients that are in real estate because they bring us their suits and gowns and and polos that even though real estate attire is much more dressed down nowadays than when it was.

when I started where we all wore, you know, white collared shirts and ties. But other than the fact that we have real estate agents as clients, there’s not a real relation between this business, which has now become kind of my foundational investment that has opened things up for me in real estate, totally separate.

Yeah. The reason I asked that is because, know, kind of my structure and I’m nowhere near even putting all these pieces together. I just have the outline for kind of what I think I’m going to do. But I like to really look at who is buying what, who is building what. And I think Buffett is probably the perfect example that I found where you have him invested like with Berkshire, right. But then you also he’s got an insurance company that’s got furniture and then invests in railroads.

Speaker 2 (09:35.564)
So it’s like you buy the house from him, get the insurance from his other company, then you buy the furniture for your new house from his other company, and then he ships the furniture to his furniture stores on the railroads he invests in. So it’s money just constantly circulating, you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There’s a TV show a couple years ago that I saw undercover millionaire, I think it’s called, and they took an individual that, you know, has been very successful in business on the outside and they give them like a hundred bucks or a very small amount. They drop them off in any town USA and he has a very short window of time, he or she, to become a millionaire. And it is just astonishing.

what these individuals that are so mentally creative in business, what they do to get there. And if you’ve seen that show, and I’m not even sure that I’m quoting it correctly, but it’s out there. I mean, there was one guy that went and he had some knowledge from when he was young and his dad would flip tires and he found an old yard where there was a tire and he.

picked it up and that got him seven, 800 bucks. And it’s, that’s just what investors do, right? They find opportunities to create ROI for themselves. And I think that that skillset, when you’ve really got it down, is not exclusive to your industry, the industry where you started or one industry. You could take that skillset like a Warren Buffett and put it all over the place and really,

That’s, you know, to any viewers or anyone that, you know, potentially gets value from my story. That’s really what I’m, what I’m preaching nowadays is, is, be open when you develop that skillset, really, you could make money anywhere.

Speaker 2 (11:27.468)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I remember watching that episode with Glenn Stearns as who it was that did it. Flipped the tires, and he took the flipping the tires and figured out how to get a piece of property, turned it into a barbecue restaurant. And what was so amazing was at the end of the show, of course, they showed like in the first few episodes how he was dealing with like some medical stuff, and then it gets to the end of it, and the entire 90 days while he was doing it, he was having a severe

reaction like some sort of medical issue where he was having a bag attached to his stomach and everything and it also goes to show you the no excuses mentality of somebody with a driven mission of accomplishment, right?

sure absolutely

Cardone was another crazy guest to watch on that show. That was a fun one of him going from zero to figuring out how to sleep in a camper to flip in a car to all this. Pretty wild how they all thought similarly.

Very inspiring, very inspiring, at least for me, for sure.

Speaker 2 (12:28.172)
Yeah, I’m the same way. That’s something I actually was thinking I need to revisit and go watch those episodes again, just to get the creative juices flowing. So dry cleaners, real successful in real estate. You’ve got retirement coming up. What’s next for you?

You know, right now I’m having fun and excited with growing the dry cleaners, right? Similar to growing the real estate offices that I’ve had in my career and even of course the rentals that I’ve owned. This is a new challenge and there’s aspects of it that I’m learning. I’m learning in the industry, but there’s aspects of it that I also realize that my experience gives me a competitive advantage.

Right? Many, if not most dry cleaners, I would say in America are owner operators, meaning that it’s a family that owns the place, runs the place, and that’s their job. And that’s their income. And look, God bless small business owners and operators, right? I I really feel that’s the backbone of our country. And I’ve always looked to support them. And yet now that I am kind of on the inside, realizing what that takes,

There’s a lot of work there, but also for me, there’s opportunity because a dry cleaners is a business kind of in the middle. It’s not so entry level because there is some complexity to it, but it’s small enough where I feel at least the larger investors overlook it, right? They’re looking to get into larger things, larger spreads.

with perhaps a smaller obligation employee-wise. So it allows a person like myself to go in here and potentially by two, three, four, five, six dry cleaners in a community, create a brand, do all these other things, talking about ancillary services, the way we do in real estate brokerage, where we also offer or recommend the lender, the termite guy, the insurance company, the home warranty, the inspector.

Speaker 1 (14:37.974)
I’m thinking, wow, how can I do that in real and dry cleaning? Right? So we’ve got delivery, we’ve got laundry services, wash and fold that we’ll do with you. So similarly, I’m bringing that concept that perhaps some of my competitors in this space are not able to offer because they’re limited in their, how many of them there are. I’m thinking beyond that. And, you know, I’m inspired by the stories of the early pioneers of folks like

McDonald’s, the McDonald’s brothers, the Snyders that founded In-N-Out in California and how they went from selling something so peculiar as a cheeseburger with someone that’s driving up and created a brand. so to answer your question, that’s kind of where my mind’s at and I’m having fun with it at this point.

We’ll check back in five years. Yeah, yeah. man Jason is going to be the trike cleaner, dry cleaner king of the Southwest.

Speaker 2 (15:39.15)
What’s one of the biggest risks you took early on in business?

In the dry cleaners or prior?

In general, open-ended.

Yeah, earlier on, right, and I shared with you in our pre-conversation, you know, I had a major dip in my career when the correction of 09, 010 occurred. I was overextended and the amount of debt that I had, it was almost exclusively funded by real estate. And so if you looked at me on a

loan application. There was a point that I looked great because the assets were far overwhelming the debt and, everything was paying for itself and things looked good. But when those assets dropped in value as drastically as they did, I, did not quickly enough because I didn’t see it coming. And I, I, and I don’t know who did it, right? Very few.

Speaker 1 (16:49.784)
perhaps now looking back, I did not think the change was going to be as drastic as it was and as fast as it was. And I was slow to react. Grant Cardone, one of these guys that we all kind of hear of nowadays, he talks about all the time that cash is king, right? He’s not the only one to coin the term, right? But man, was he right with me for that period cash was king, right? When the income was not coming in,

for the short window of time that for me was the struggle. Had I had that, things would have been okay, but I didn’t. And that was my hiccup. And I think for many, that was the same story, right? And so early on, that big challenge was maintaining enough cash, liquid assets that could serve as an insurance policy and protect you in the event

Your tenants aren’t paying. You can’t refinance the place and get the cash out. And the value is dropping every three months drastically. If you’ve got enough cash flow to protect yourself and maintain yourself, because it never lasts forever. For me, it was probably a eight, nine, 10 month window. But that window really hurt me. So now, right, or to others, you need to be able to have something just in case, just in case that rainy day that comes about every decade or so.

Yeah, that makes sense now so with your with your coaching I mean for you to have had took 12,000 paid calls a Stainful amount of time at point did you start transitioning into coaching? Was that mostly just your agents was other people that saw you and said you know what I need to work with you or what what what wanted you to or what made you want to get into the coaching space and then

achieve as much as you have in that arena as well.

Speaker 1 (18:49.164)
It was kind of a natural transition from leadership to coaching, right? At the same time, one of the things that I do to fuel the growth of my offices was I opened a real estate school and it was a licensing school to help individuals get their real estate license. And of course it was just the natural space to have them stay with the office that they already got to new for the six to eight weeks that they were with us. So being in front of the classroom, if you will, it was a natural

Step to getting into coaching in the Keller Williams environment. Coaching is very promoted early on in my career. I was introduced by an individual by the name of Mike Ferry, local to Southern California, kind of the godfather of coaching. If you will, the guys have been doing it since the 1970s and so I followed him from early on in my career. Many of the coaches that were initially working with him had.

come over to Keller Williams when Keller Williams was kind of at their their apex. So I recognized a lot of the folks and we kind of spoke the same language. And for an eight year period of the decade plus that I was with Keller Williams, I was also moonlighting, if you will. It started as coaching, but then post leaving Keller Williams, it started as part time coaching. mean, it turned into a full time gig. And yeah, a lot of them were the coaches, the clients that were

Kind of in my space, right? Looking to transition from sales to leadership or being a broker owner. And then later on I coached for Mike Ferry’s son that’s also in the business and then some private coaching. And while that part of my business nowadays, I do have some clients that have stuck with me all this time because they’re just long-term clients, but that’s no longer something I promote. But yeah, for a period of eight, nine years, I was doing a lot of one-on-one coaching.

For sure.

Speaker 2 (20:49.454)
How important has coaching been for yourself or mentorships that you’ve been a part of? Have you done anything unique in that space for yourself?

I put myself through college and I have a business degree, a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business administration. And that gives you a foundation in a certain almost general business. But the coaching that I received from individuals that have done what I was looking to do prior to me and guided me through

on a week by week basis is like going to college on steroids, if you will. And I know that that sounds very cliche, but for me, it was vital in my development to always have somebody that I could run something by and they could tell me if they thought it was a good idea or a bad idea, given their experience, or they could encourage me along to, hey, go here.

and search this because I have other clients or other colleagues that have done what you’re asking about and here’s what they’ve done. It’s almost like having a shortcut to business that unless you grow up in a family environment where everyone’s an entrepreneur, which I didn’t have, the coaching replaces a lot of that. At least it did for me. And that was something that I was always looking to also offer to those that were

in my coaching stable for the years that I was doing that.

Speaker 2 (22:27.424)
Yeah, I totally agree with you on that. know, I, I chose instead of going to college, I chose to just get around people that had the results that I wanted in my life and either pay them or get involved in whatever business they were involved in or go work for them or whatever that might be. Because I saw the path of like, you know, I’m probably not going to be the right fit for a corporate America style environment. And I don’t need college to be massively financially successful. And in fact, everybody I see going, unless they’re a doctor, attorney, engineer,

whatever like most of even use their degrees. So there’s no guarantee of success. And you know, it’s given me a unique lens, but man, I’m telling you, if I hadn’t done that, I’d probably be having to still work on the pipeline when I was like I was when I was 18, hopefully saved up enough to start my business. I think it really honestly cut off probably 10 years of hard learning that I otherwise would have had to go through.

Yeah, it’s like a shortcut. It’s like a shortcut for sure.

So who do you coach with now? Or are you kind of past that season? When you’re looking for a mentor, what are some things you look for as somebody that’s already created success?

Yeah, you know, at this point in my career, I read a lot. I watch podcasts. I think coaching has been replaced with listening to those that certainly have achieved more. And it doesn’t take much for me to pick something up from someone talking. I’m like, OK, that that that’ll that’ll fund me, if you will, for the next two weeks. So.

Speaker 1 (24:04.07)
It’s kind of a transition, right? I don’t at this point have anyone necessarily that I’m checking in with on a weekly basis the way I did when I was younger in my career. But there’s always a form of learning and being mentored and being coached from others. Some of these guys don’t know that, perhaps they’ve served as my coach when I listen to them and read them, but it’s transitioned to that at this point.

Yeah, you got it. So if you could go back to the beginning of when you got started and you could do something different and do something the same, but take the knowledge that you’ve gained over the last 30 or so years, what would you do different and what would you do the same?

Yeah, I would get into other forms of.

investing.

I would get into other aspects of investing sooner. And it could be, Stephen, the place that I’m in in my career right now. I don’t know if necessarily 10 years from now I’ll have that same advice, but right now it has been so striking to me that investing in a dry cleaners, a business that I would have overlooked as an investment, even though I’ve been going to dry cleaners my whole life,

Speaker 1 (25:25.282)
that something in front of me was something I overlooked in an opportunity. I would have looked for other opportunities in addition to purchasing real estate or long-term investment return. I would have done that sooner. That’s definitely something that’s a standout to me right

Yeah, absolutely. So do you do you still play in the real estate space like at all now or do you just kind of keep your portfolio where it’s at? Do you have intentions of ever like stopping investing in real estate and only doing cash flow businesses or what’s kind of the strategy now that you’re looking

I still own real estate in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s my plan to continue. I mean, I think right now prices are a little bit, lot of homes are overpriced. It’s just my personal opinion. But, know, real estate is a slow and steady way of always appreciating your money, right? Your savings, right? Certainly if you got some money, you put it in your Wells Fargo checking account, it’s just gonna sit there and…

you come back to it a year later, you’ve got about what you had a year ago, maybe less if we count for what inflation has done. at least with real estate over the long haul, it’s going to appreciate, right? I don’t know that it’s going to appreciate at the levels that we saw when they dropped rates as much as they did. I think some of that is artificial and we may be seeing a correction, but in the long haul, it’s always going to go up, at least historically it does.

I have no intention of stopping that, but this gives me kind of a shot in the arm where now I have another strong stream of income that allows for me to continue my real estate investing without having to have the income come from the day job as it would have had to come from prior to. And I also realize, right, and here’s an opportunity for me

Speaker 1 (27:29.222)
Looking ahead, gosh, what would life look like if you have five streams of income that way or 10 streams of income? That’s where you see these gurus and what they create for themselves. And then, you know, then of course the the the sky’s the limit, right? There’s no limit to the amount of wealth you can create. I think that way. So that’s what I’m looking at at this point.

Love it. Well, Jason, we appreciate you coming on and and spending some knowledge for us dropping some knowledge. How can these folks connect with you for more if they want to see what you’re working on or maybe just learn more about you?

Yeah, they can email me. They can call me on my cell, text me, I’m available. You could find me online. think if you Google Jason Botch Coach, I show up somewhere. so anyway, I’m available. I answer calls. And anyway I could help, I’m certainly open to doing so.

Well, there you go folks. You’re dropping some love from the real estate pros in the investor fuel community. And we appreciate Jason so much. I know you guys have gotten some value out of this and you’ll be off the rates. Thanks so much again and we’ll see you all in next episode.

Right on.